1. Summary of the Invention
This invention relates to a security control and alarm system and, more particularly, to such a system wherein a central station communicates with and provides point-to-point monitoring and control function for each remote facility protected by the system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As is well known, a substantial and urgent need exists for protecting the security of buildings and in turn the possession of the occupants of buildings against illegal breaking and entering and burglary. The need is especially extreme in the case of office buildings in major metropolitan areas, not only in the United States, but in foreign countries as well.
The most rudimentary form of protection, yet one which is extremely costly, is the provision of security guards who are stationed in the building during the non-business hours. Typically, a sign-in and sign-out list is provided for those individuals to sign upon entering and later upon leaving the building. The inadequacies of such a system are well known and do not require explanation.
In the past, efforts have been made to automate such security and monitoring functions through the use of electronic equipment. To date, the majority of these systems have proven to be either ineffective or too costly to provide a meaningful, practical solution to the problem, suitable for widespread use.
The attention directed to this need, however, has resulted in defining and outlining certain mineral criteria which must be met in the design of an effective security system. For example, the system must be capable of restricting entry into the building to authorized personnel only, and of detecting an unauthorized entry into a suite of officies within the buidling belonging to a given tenant. Detection of the unauthorized entry, of course, serves to detect the intended theft of expensive office equipment such as typewriters, electronic calculators and the like, vandalism, or other improper actions intended by the one making the unauthorized entry. It is both critical and apparent that the system design be reliable so as to assure the detection and, as well, so as to minimize and indeed totally eliminate if possible the occurence of false alarms. Reliablity also indicated that personnel of the protected premises have minimal participation in activating or controlling the system. Acceptability of the system moreover dictates that a minimum of inconvenience to the tenant be presented. Since the costs of initial installation and subsequent maintenance of the system are critical determinants in its widespread acceptability, it is necessary that the system design be as simple as possible while affording the requisite monitoring control and alarm functions with a sufficient degree of reliability and flexibility.
As noted, prior art systems have failed to satisfy one or more of these various requirements. A significant obstacle which the prior art has not overcome is the fact that, as is typically the case in commercial office buildings, individual suites must be cleaned nightly by a staff of cleaning or char-people employed by the owners/manager of the office building. These cleaning staffs necessarily are permitted access to the suites after business hours and thus require and are given master keys for operating the normal door locks and gaining access to the suites which they service. The presence of these cleaning personnel presents probably the largest single obstacle in establishing an effective security system for this type of premises.
In the typical prior art systems, a passkey is required to disarm an alarm circuit which otherwise serves to indicated unauthorized entry. Such systems cannot be effective since such passkeys, as well as a master door lock key, must be provided to the char-people as well. The dilemma thus is presented that the distribution of passkeys to the cleaning personnel has at least the potential of destroying the security intended to be afforded by the passkey; alternatively, not distributing the passkeys would result in the cleaning personnel triggering the alarms every time they entered a suite after business hours to perform their normal cleaning functions.
Prior art systems typically require that the tenant personally activate, or arm, the system at the end of business hours upon leaving the office. The tenant also must remember to deactivate, or disarm, the system at the start of the next business day. It is unrealistic to expect that each of the various tenants in a given protected facility will remember without fail to perform these activating and deactivating functions. The result is that the alarm system frequently is not activated and remains ineffective or, alternatively, is not deactivated at the beginning of the next business day, resulting in false alarms. In any event, such prior art systems present a distinct inconvenience which most tenants find objectable. Regarding the false alarm condition, it as well should be recognized that the problem typically is encountered that the alarm system cannot be readily accessible for deactivation once set off by an unauthorized entry. Hence, where a tenant through forgetfulness does not deactivate the system prior to entry, even though in the period of normal business hours, and thus sets off a false alarm, he may not have the ability to shut off the alarm. This problem is even further compounded where only selected personnel of a given suite of offices are to be provided with a passkey to enter and leave after normal business hours. In that instance, on an ensuing business day, if such an authorized person has forgotten his passkey, or is not the first to arrive, entry into the suite by a person who is otherwise properly there during business hours would set off the alarm and there would be no means to terminate the false alarm.
The prior art has attempted to deal with the false alarm situation by providing silent alarms. This has only compounded the problem, since the authorized personnel is not aware of his improper entry. Such systems also are restricted to the silent alarm condition at all times.
These and numerous other problems have not been satisfactorily solved by prior art security systems. As a result, the costly, yet ineffective approach of having private guards sit in the lobbies of office buildings and other such facilities throughout the non-business hours and continued to be the principal means of providing this monitoring function.